Sauron /ˈsaʊrɒn/ is the titular character of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. In the same work, he is identified as the Necromancer mentioned in Tolkien's earlier novel The Hobbit. In Tolkien's The Silmarillion (published posthumously by Tolkien's son Christopher Tolkien), he is also described as the chief lieutenant of the first Dark Lord, Morgoth. Tolkien noted that the "angelic" powers of his constructed myth "were capable of many degrees of error and failing," but by far the worst was "the absolute Satanic rebellion and evil of Morgoth and his satellite Sauron." The cosmological myth prefixed to The Silmarillion explains how the supreme being Eru initiated his creation by bringing into being innumerable spirits, "the offspring of his thought," who were with him before anything else had been made. The being later known as Sauron thus originated as an "immortal (angelic) spirit." In his origin, Sauron therefore perceived the Creator directly. As Tolkien noted: "Sauron cou...